Hamlet : rational and emotional units of meaning in four soliloquies

Abstract

The idea for this paper came out of an interaction between two academics working in the separate fields of Mathematics and Drama Studies at Durban University of Technology. Our aim was to try and use a system dynamic analysis to chart the emotional and intellectual conflict within Hamlet's character, as revealed in his four principal soliloquies. To do this the first step was to attempt to quantify the extent of emotional and intellectual facets to parts of his speech. This paper gives what we think is the interesting result of this attempt.